The Documentary Film Boody: The Sumo Pharaoh Premieres in Egypt at the Sharm El Sheikh Film Festival

The Documentary Film Boody: The Sumo Pharaoh Premieres in Egypt at the Sharm El Sheikh Film Festival

The documentary film Boody: The Sumo Pharaoh by director Sarah Riad is taking part in the 2nd Sharm El Sheikh Film Festival (3-9 March) within the Panorama Section. The film, which is distributed by MAD Solutions, will be screened on Wednesday, March 7th, at 6:30 pm in Hall 2 at Kiroseiz Cinema.

The film revolves around Boody, nicknamed Ōsunaarashi (The Great Sandstorm), who is the first Egyptian sumo wrestler to make it to the professional Sumo world in Japan. The documentary follows Boody's story from his beginnings in a small Egyptian countryside village all the way to Tokyo as he becomes the very first Egyptian to become a professional Sumo wrestler.

The film previously won the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival and the Ouchy Film Awards in Switzerland. It also took part in several film festivals, such as Largo Film Awards, Poland International Film Festival, International Independent Film Awards in Germany, and Philadelphia Independent Film Festival.

Sarah Riad is an Egyptian-Japanese filmmaker. She majored in Media Studies at two different universities in Egypt and Japan, but she dropped out of both. The, she decided to begin her own journey of self-learning. She has been working as an independent filmmaker and writer since 2012 after training by working on many documentaries, TV shows and short films, as well as vlogging different events. In the end, she began writing and directing her first project.

Among her noteworthy projects is the short film El Film Da Haram, which caused quite the sensation in the Arab and Islamic region after it was released on YouTube in 2012, and it received more than 600 thousand views. It was also aired on one of the most popular television stations in Egypt twice. Sarah Riad also wrote and directed the short film Soulless in 2013, which was selected at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth inSeattle, Washington, USA, in 2014.

As a writer, Sarah published her first book "Eib wla Haram" in April 2013. It is currently among the best-selling books in Egypt and has reached its fourth edition.